Last weekend, FC Cincinnati held the gates against the minions of Columbus and came away with a 0-0 draw in a hard fought Hell is Real (thus winning the regular season series). However, it is a result that can’t be celebrated for long as MLS finishes the season with a mad dash to the playoffs.
On Wednesday, FC Cincinnati travel to the Land of 10,000 Lakes to face a foe with a history of tormenting the Orange and Blue as much as the team up north, Minnesota United.
Often it can feel that FCC rarely builds a history with teams from the West, but with this upcoming game it will see the two teams playing five times in the 6 years they’ve been in MLS together. And the Loons have most often held the upper hand, leading the series 4-1 with the first game being a 7-1 shellacking.
Normally with that history, you would assume that history leads to predictive trends, but since the two teams last faced off, Minnesota has had a nearly full transformation.
Starting the year, Minnesota fired long-time coach and GM Adrian Heath, and announced Barnsley FC Sporting Director Khaled El-Ahmad as their new Chief Soccer Officer. There was just one problem, as El-Ahmad would not leave Barnsley until the end of the English season in May. and wouldn’t appoint a manager until he got to Minneapolis.
Running a delayed managerial search turned out to be a bigger hassle than originally sold, and it meant that Minnesota started with an Interim for their Interim Coach after their first took the head coach job at Indianapolis XI.
When he did get to the club, however, he appointed a coach quickly in Manchester United’s assistant coach Eric Ramsey. And the both of them joined a team flying through the start of the season. The Loons started the season earning 25 points out of a possible 39, and sat in second place in the West.
Every season has their ups and downs however, and Minnesota went on a summer slump after that and didn’t win in eight consecutive games. Their skid eventually ended with a victory over San Jose just before the MLS All Star break.
In past seasons, it was usually Emanuel Reynoso who would pull the Loons out of a tailspin, but their talismanic creator has been MIA for the season. In the early parts, the club was saying he was staying in Argentina for mental health issues, but the player was posting pictures from nightclubs in Buenos Aires. There were public spats back and forth in the press and open speculations if he would travel to Minnesota or not.
Reynoso eventually became so detached from the club that they were forced to sell him to Club Tijuana in the summer window. But the departure of their best player allowed the team to move on and bring in players who built on the manager’s vision.
Despite having been just burned by an Argentinian creator, Minnesota filled a DP spot with another Argentine attacker. Joaquín Pereyra joined the Loons from Atlético Tucumán in Argentina, with the promise of being a creator from the wing. With 6G/16A in his last season they hope he will connect well with the other new DP, striker Kelvin Yeboah.
Despite his spotty record in Europe, (six goals in 66 appearances for Genoa) he has started off his MLS career off hot with three goals in three appearances.
Uncharitably, it could be pointed out he is starting off against a very soft schedule (@ San Jose, @ St Louis) with two PKs scored, but he has also been the benefactor of a new tactical shift for the Loons. Where Minnesota has previously been a hard counter-pressing team, they’ve tweaked slightly and are trying to defend deeper and then be vertical in their attack.
Clicking through the highlights of their last two games, you see chance after chance of Minnesota running down hill with Pereyra, attacking midfielder Robin Lod and midfielder Wil Trapp threading through ball after through ball to onrushing attackers.
Yeboah has benefitted the most, but attackers Bongi Hlongwane and Tani Oluwaseyi have both seen several chances against backtracking defenders, but have yet to finish at the same rates they did at the start of the season.
Still, there is ample hope for FCC, as the Minnesota defenders have shown they are capable of being outpaced by attackers and struggle to communicate well when the defensive structure falls apart in front of them. With a weekend matchup that left some wanting more from the attack, the opportunity for a bounce back is certainly there for the Orange and Blue attacking core.
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